My first started thread, and while I know there are a lot of ME3 threads at the moment, none of them really had the right tenor of what I'm feeling needs to be said. Not hate, or anger or rage...but a feeling of being disappointed and perhaps slightly betrayed...maybe I should piggyback one of the other threads, but I'm not demanding a change or an edit to the ending...I just want to speak my mind on what happened...what I thought of the game.
Maybe I need to say SPOILER WARNING for ME1&2&3, but consider it said and expected for what I'm writing. Comments on a lot of major moments and decisions, so if you don't want your game to be spoiled, stop reading now.
You've been warned.
Sitting here, I still have the credits playing in the background of my playthrough of Mass Effect 3. They're scrolling and the music is playing and strangely, unlike any game I've ever played before, I'm not watching them. I've made a habit of watching the credits for every game I've ever beaten, just setting down the controller and watching them. Reading names, letting everything sink in...what the creators of the game did...it's a moment of triumph. I beat the game, and I finished it. But I can't, not with this one. I sat through the credits of the previous two Mass Effect games with awe and amazement. I enjoyed reading all those names and tipping my hat to them out of admiration. But this time, I can't.
Maybe I could talk about the ending, and perhaps I can admit those words that are beginning to be despised...the last 15 minutes ruined the game. It's sad that something that's a cry of haters is the epitaph for a game which I looked forward to for a long time...but it's true in my case.
I started playing Mass Effect when it came out, the new and interesting game out there, I wasn't that familiar with Bioware, but I thought I'd give it a shot...and I adored it. The depth of the universe, the diversity, the excellent writing, it was something that I was hard pressed to find in games. I did four playthroughs, 50 hours of gaming in one title, leading my Shep through the trials and struggles of that first game, enjoying the depth of the characters. It was a game, but there was more to it. Sitting there and deciding who would die on Virmire, Ashely or Kaiden, fighting to keep Wrex alive, things like that had weight to them, had depth. I remember the moment of concern and worry after that last battle, the relief I felt when Garrus and Tali were alive. The moment of delight when Tali shot Saren's corpse to make sure he was dead. Those were characters who I'd spoken to, fought with, learned about their lives and sacrifices, these were characters yes, but excellent characters who actually felt compelling. And that was something that I had never felt in a game. I'd played KoTOR, and those characters didn't evoke the same kind of consideration, the same kind of attachment that I felt for the characters in Mass Effect.
I got ME2 as soon as it came out, imported my Shepard and began playing...but this was turning into more than a game. The person that my Shep was...he was different. There were things that carried through, things that shaped him. I remember when I saw Tali and I smiled at the sight of her, I remember actually saying, 'Yes! It's Garrus!' when I found him on Omega. I can remember smiling when Shep convinced Grunt to become part of the crew, listening to Zaeed after his missions and thinking what a badass he was. I can remember chuckling at Kasumi's commentary on the crew, listening to the endless stream of Calibrations comments from Garrus. I can remember laughing at Grunt's 'We'll fight from the shade!' comment on Haestrom. The feeling of sadness on Horizon with Kaiden's accusations. I remember romancing Tali. Sure, they were characters, but I got to know them. In an odd way they did what most writers can't accomplish with a book, they made me connect with these characters in a personal way. They didn't feel like characters, they felt like PEOPLE. They felt like friends you'd fought with, comrades who you'd fought and bled beside.
I played through Mass Effect 1 and 2 to get my playthough for Mass Effect 3...and it didn't feel like a game anymore, it really felt like a world that my character was living it. The weight of what had happened before to shape what was happening felt as if it was there, as if it was all around me. Things that happened in the world began to feel like they had weight beyond what a mere story should. I remember reading the names on the memorial on the Normandy for the first time, just out of curiosity, but then seeing names I knew, Ashley and Jenkins. It was a small thing, but then more names went on that wall...and characters in a game began to affect me, really affect me...I felt sorrow, sadness and pain. I watched Kaiden almost killed and stood by his bedside. I saw thane stabbed by Kai Leng, then stood by him and prayed with his son as he died. I saw Legion give up his existence to make his people whole. And I watched Mordin sacrifice himself to save the Krogan...I even felt shocked and saddened when Conrad Verner was willing to die for my Shep, but he lived.
I felt the humor and joy in other moments, shooting bottles with Garrus on the Citadel was more enjoyable than much of the game...it felt like I was just enjoying some time with a real friend. I remember having lunch with Kaiden and feeling a real emotion in his words. Listening to Liara's commentary on Shep and what he'd acomplished. Seeing Wrex and the Krogan, feeling a sense of accomplishment in saving them. More things than I can count, but they felt real, they felt like I had a connection to them.
I had an epiphany about what I was experiencing the other night. I guess one could call it a completely new kind of storytelling experience for me...or at least the first time I'd noticed it. I've watched Star Wars, all six movies, read countless books, by and large the characters are the same. There's a massive wealth of data on them, but I don't have a connection to Luke and Han and Leia. I've seen them go through countless trails and threats, lived, grown and developed as people, but I never had a connection to them, or to the world that they lived in. With Mass Effect, something different happened. As I was playing, things began to take meaning for me without having narrative GIVE them meaning. Things simply felt important to me because I'd played the games and learned so much about the universe on my own. Watching the Turian fleets at Palaven fighting the Reapers had immense weight simply because I knew what the Turians were capable of, I knew how strong they were, and the feeling of how desperately they were fighting and how outclassed they were really made me sit back and go 'oh shit, this is really bad'. Sure, there was narrative, but the words that the characters paled next to what I had learned.
Like with Aria's mission to recruit the Blood Pack, Eclipse and Blue Suns. I've fought them in two other games extensively, I've been on the receiving end of their combat power, and gaining control of them in the War Map meant more than simply unlocking a few points towards a victory, I knew what they were like, I knew how dangerous they were. The game didn't need to narrate it with a text block, I'd SEEN it. I learned about this universe on my own, through my play, and the storytelling didn't need to tell me about things. Perhaps it's simply amazing to me, but damn it was an amazing moment to realize that.
Even getting a chance to see Homosexuals represented in a game without having them be Cliche or having them be a 'LOOK! LOOK! THEY'RE GAY! LOOKLOOKLOOK AT THEIR GAYNESS!'...that was something that made me nod my head in respect, something that seeing a lifestyle like that represented as something accepted and there was worth a nod of respect in my book, and an issue like that isn't something that I would have said I need to see in a game. So many things were done right, so many things in this game were worth a nod of respect and a pat on the back for the Bioware designers. They did so many good things throughout the game.
But the end...the end of this story, the feeling of what I'd fought for. I destroyed Sovereign, I'd destroyed the Collectors, and yet at the end of it all, I watch my friend die, I speak to a creature who gives me three options, three strange options that all seem to give me the same result. Everything is gone. Everything is destroyed. I control the Reapers and destroy my soul and everything that everyone has fought for. I synergize with them and everything organic and synthetic is destroyed...or I destroy the Reapers and every synthetic in the galaxy...and every mass effect relay. And I destroy galactic civilization.
I can't challenge this child, I can't argue with him...I can't point to EDI, I can't point to the Geth. I can't tell this child that Synthetics aren't the enemy of Organic life. I can't tell him that the destruction of Organics by Synthetics is only inevitable because of HIS solution. I can't refuse it all, I can't destroy just the Reapers. No. I sit there and I look, and I'm forced to sacrifice the galaxy, and the only thing that goes through my damn head as I walk is the thought that I would have liked to help Tali build a house on Rannoch.
So I destroy the Reapers, I destroy everything, every cohesive bit of galactic civilization. I create the turmoil that the child says is going to happen simply to defeat the Reapers and stop this insane cycle that demands organic life be destroyed by synthetics so that it WON'T be destroyed by Synthetics...even though some of the strongest fleets that are opposing these Synthetics are the GETH. The Geth...and a geth was my team mate, my friend...friend enough to make it up on that memorial wall on the Normandy. But no...he died...the Geth died...the Reapers died...and Shepard, he has to die too.
And I watch as the Reapers are destroyed, and the Relays are Destroyed, and the Normandy flies off in a Shockwave for some reason...and crashes on an unknown planet. And I watch Tali get off that ship right after Joker and I think 'thank god she lived'...but then I wonder...how did she live? How did she get to the Normandy? SHe was with me in London...she was fighting with me there...her and Garrus. But how did she get there...and Javik, he was in London to...but he got out of the ship...
I'm...confused. I see N7, and he draws a breath...and the credits roll.
I...don't know just what to say about it. I can't help but feel disappointed. Maybe there are a lot of fans out there, all of them in the same boat as me. A lot of them are angry, and raging, and despising Bioware for how it ended things. But I don't know. Maybe I'll fall to that, maybe I'll become angry and enraged, hoping for something better. But for now, I just feel devastated, something that had been so good, and done things with storytelling and narrative that I had never thought possible, ended it's triumph with...'and it was all just a story'.
That was it's end. The end to a game created consistent player experience, created a story which immersed me, created characters that I felt connection to, created a world that I felt a part of, ended with a plot mechanic that rings hollow in a middle school creative writing class. I simply...don't know what to say, it ended so badly, it betrayed what my hopes and dreams for this story were. I can't face it, I can't look at that game the same way, I can't look at Bioware the same way. There was no real ending to the story, there was no completion of the Shepard story, it was simply a 'it was a story' end. That's not closure, that's a cop out.
IT takes the intrinsic aim of Mass Effect, giving everyone their own story, and tells them instead of everything having their own story and experiance, theirs is simply one fanciful tale that's different from what really happened. I didn't go through Mass Effect thinking 'what really happened?' I KNEW it, I talked down Saren, I had to let Ashely die. I KNEW what happened. I didn't think in Mass Effect 2, 'What really happened?'. I KNEW it. I made it through the suicide mission alive, I saved my Crew, I destroyed the Collector base. I KNEW it happened. And now...now in Mass Effect 3, I don't know what happened. Did Shepdard unite the galaxy? Did the Last Prothean stand with him? Did he really save the Krogan? Did he really amass an Armada that had Turians, Humans, Batarians, Quarians, Geth, Asari, and Salarians fighting side by side to save the Galaxy? Did he really do any of that?
I don't know.
Perhaps this is a whine, perhaps it's a rant, but none of those words really fill the gap of what I'm feeling. I suppose the best word is Mourning.
Mourning the loss of so much potential, the loss of everything that I invested in the game. I've put over a hundred hours into the Mass Effect Series...and now, I wonder if I'll ever put in another.
So here I am. An avid fan, one accepting of Bioware, enjoying their work, not demanding perfection, not demanding that WHAT I WANT be the most important thing to the creators, not even demanding money or re compensation or anything else from Bioware. I'm not pointing fingers or crucifying anyone, I'm not out for blood or vengeance, I'm not even saying that I'll do a boycott or refuse to buy anything.
I'm just saying that at the end of all this...something wonderful turned to something very sad, and it's disappointing to see it.
Maybe I need to say SPOILER WARNING for ME1&2&3, but consider it said and expected for what I'm writing. Comments on a lot of major moments and decisions, so if you don't want your game to be spoiled, stop reading now.
You've been warned.
Sitting here, I still have the credits playing in the background of my playthrough of Mass Effect 3. They're scrolling and the music is playing and strangely, unlike any game I've ever played before, I'm not watching them. I've made a habit of watching the credits for every game I've ever beaten, just setting down the controller and watching them. Reading names, letting everything sink in...what the creators of the game did...it's a moment of triumph. I beat the game, and I finished it. But I can't, not with this one. I sat through the credits of the previous two Mass Effect games with awe and amazement. I enjoyed reading all those names and tipping my hat to them out of admiration. But this time, I can't.
Maybe I could talk about the ending, and perhaps I can admit those words that are beginning to be despised...the last 15 minutes ruined the game. It's sad that something that's a cry of haters is the epitaph for a game which I looked forward to for a long time...but it's true in my case.
I started playing Mass Effect when it came out, the new and interesting game out there, I wasn't that familiar with Bioware, but I thought I'd give it a shot...and I adored it. The depth of the universe, the diversity, the excellent writing, it was something that I was hard pressed to find in games. I did four playthroughs, 50 hours of gaming in one title, leading my Shep through the trials and struggles of that first game, enjoying the depth of the characters. It was a game, but there was more to it. Sitting there and deciding who would die on Virmire, Ashely or Kaiden, fighting to keep Wrex alive, things like that had weight to them, had depth. I remember the moment of concern and worry after that last battle, the relief I felt when Garrus and Tali were alive. The moment of delight when Tali shot Saren's corpse to make sure he was dead. Those were characters who I'd spoken to, fought with, learned about their lives and sacrifices, these were characters yes, but excellent characters who actually felt compelling. And that was something that I had never felt in a game. I'd played KoTOR, and those characters didn't evoke the same kind of consideration, the same kind of attachment that I felt for the characters in Mass Effect.
I got ME2 as soon as it came out, imported my Shepard and began playing...but this was turning into more than a game. The person that my Shep was...he was different. There were things that carried through, things that shaped him. I remember when I saw Tali and I smiled at the sight of her, I remember actually saying, 'Yes! It's Garrus!' when I found him on Omega. I can remember smiling when Shep convinced Grunt to become part of the crew, listening to Zaeed after his missions and thinking what a badass he was. I can remember chuckling at Kasumi's commentary on the crew, listening to the endless stream of Calibrations comments from Garrus. I can remember laughing at Grunt's 'We'll fight from the shade!' comment on Haestrom. The feeling of sadness on Horizon with Kaiden's accusations. I remember romancing Tali. Sure, they were characters, but I got to know them. In an odd way they did what most writers can't accomplish with a book, they made me connect with these characters in a personal way. They didn't feel like characters, they felt like PEOPLE. They felt like friends you'd fought with, comrades who you'd fought and bled beside.
I played through Mass Effect 1 and 2 to get my playthough for Mass Effect 3...and it didn't feel like a game anymore, it really felt like a world that my character was living it. The weight of what had happened before to shape what was happening felt as if it was there, as if it was all around me. Things that happened in the world began to feel like they had weight beyond what a mere story should. I remember reading the names on the memorial on the Normandy for the first time, just out of curiosity, but then seeing names I knew, Ashley and Jenkins. It was a small thing, but then more names went on that wall...and characters in a game began to affect me, really affect me...I felt sorrow, sadness and pain. I watched Kaiden almost killed and stood by his bedside. I saw thane stabbed by Kai Leng, then stood by him and prayed with his son as he died. I saw Legion give up his existence to make his people whole. And I watched Mordin sacrifice himself to save the Krogan...I even felt shocked and saddened when Conrad Verner was willing to die for my Shep, but he lived.
I felt the humor and joy in other moments, shooting bottles with Garrus on the Citadel was more enjoyable than much of the game...it felt like I was just enjoying some time with a real friend. I remember having lunch with Kaiden and feeling a real emotion in his words. Listening to Liara's commentary on Shep and what he'd acomplished. Seeing Wrex and the Krogan, feeling a sense of accomplishment in saving them. More things than I can count, but they felt real, they felt like I had a connection to them.
I had an epiphany about what I was experiencing the other night. I guess one could call it a completely new kind of storytelling experience for me...or at least the first time I'd noticed it. I've watched Star Wars, all six movies, read countless books, by and large the characters are the same. There's a massive wealth of data on them, but I don't have a connection to Luke and Han and Leia. I've seen them go through countless trails and threats, lived, grown and developed as people, but I never had a connection to them, or to the world that they lived in. With Mass Effect, something different happened. As I was playing, things began to take meaning for me without having narrative GIVE them meaning. Things simply felt important to me because I'd played the games and learned so much about the universe on my own. Watching the Turian fleets at Palaven fighting the Reapers had immense weight simply because I knew what the Turians were capable of, I knew how strong they were, and the feeling of how desperately they were fighting and how outclassed they were really made me sit back and go 'oh shit, this is really bad'. Sure, there was narrative, but the words that the characters paled next to what I had learned.
Like with Aria's mission to recruit the Blood Pack, Eclipse and Blue Suns. I've fought them in two other games extensively, I've been on the receiving end of their combat power, and gaining control of them in the War Map meant more than simply unlocking a few points towards a victory, I knew what they were like, I knew how dangerous they were. The game didn't need to narrate it with a text block, I'd SEEN it. I learned about this universe on my own, through my play, and the storytelling didn't need to tell me about things. Perhaps it's simply amazing to me, but damn it was an amazing moment to realize that.
Even getting a chance to see Homosexuals represented in a game without having them be Cliche or having them be a 'LOOK! LOOK! THEY'RE GAY! LOOKLOOKLOOK AT THEIR GAYNESS!'...that was something that made me nod my head in respect, something that seeing a lifestyle like that represented as something accepted and there was worth a nod of respect in my book, and an issue like that isn't something that I would have said I need to see in a game. So many things were done right, so many things in this game were worth a nod of respect and a pat on the back for the Bioware designers. They did so many good things throughout the game.
But the end...the end of this story, the feeling of what I'd fought for. I destroyed Sovereign, I'd destroyed the Collectors, and yet at the end of it all, I watch my friend die, I speak to a creature who gives me three options, three strange options that all seem to give me the same result. Everything is gone. Everything is destroyed. I control the Reapers and destroy my soul and everything that everyone has fought for. I synergize with them and everything organic and synthetic is destroyed...or I destroy the Reapers and every synthetic in the galaxy...and every mass effect relay. And I destroy galactic civilization.
I can't challenge this child, I can't argue with him...I can't point to EDI, I can't point to the Geth. I can't tell this child that Synthetics aren't the enemy of Organic life. I can't tell him that the destruction of Organics by Synthetics is only inevitable because of HIS solution. I can't refuse it all, I can't destroy just the Reapers. No. I sit there and I look, and I'm forced to sacrifice the galaxy, and the only thing that goes through my damn head as I walk is the thought that I would have liked to help Tali build a house on Rannoch.
So I destroy the Reapers, I destroy everything, every cohesive bit of galactic civilization. I create the turmoil that the child says is going to happen simply to defeat the Reapers and stop this insane cycle that demands organic life be destroyed by synthetics so that it WON'T be destroyed by Synthetics...even though some of the strongest fleets that are opposing these Synthetics are the GETH. The Geth...and a geth was my team mate, my friend...friend enough to make it up on that memorial wall on the Normandy. But no...he died...the Geth died...the Reapers died...and Shepard, he has to die too.
And I watch as the Reapers are destroyed, and the Relays are Destroyed, and the Normandy flies off in a Shockwave for some reason...and crashes on an unknown planet. And I watch Tali get off that ship right after Joker and I think 'thank god she lived'...but then I wonder...how did she live? How did she get to the Normandy? SHe was with me in London...she was fighting with me there...her and Garrus. But how did she get there...and Javik, he was in London to...but he got out of the ship...
I'm...confused. I see N7, and he draws a breath...and the credits roll.
I...don't know just what to say about it. I can't help but feel disappointed. Maybe there are a lot of fans out there, all of them in the same boat as me. A lot of them are angry, and raging, and despising Bioware for how it ended things. But I don't know. Maybe I'll fall to that, maybe I'll become angry and enraged, hoping for something better. But for now, I just feel devastated, something that had been so good, and done things with storytelling and narrative that I had never thought possible, ended it's triumph with...'and it was all just a story'.
That was it's end. The end to a game created consistent player experience, created a story which immersed me, created characters that I felt connection to, created a world that I felt a part of, ended with a plot mechanic that rings hollow in a middle school creative writing class. I simply...don't know what to say, it ended so badly, it betrayed what my hopes and dreams for this story were. I can't face it, I can't look at that game the same way, I can't look at Bioware the same way. There was no real ending to the story, there was no completion of the Shepard story, it was simply a 'it was a story' end. That's not closure, that's a cop out.
IT takes the intrinsic aim of Mass Effect, giving everyone their own story, and tells them instead of everything having their own story and experiance, theirs is simply one fanciful tale that's different from what really happened. I didn't go through Mass Effect thinking 'what really happened?' I KNEW it, I talked down Saren, I had to let Ashely die. I KNEW what happened. I didn't think in Mass Effect 2, 'What really happened?'. I KNEW it. I made it through the suicide mission alive, I saved my Crew, I destroyed the Collector base. I KNEW it happened. And now...now in Mass Effect 3, I don't know what happened. Did Shepdard unite the galaxy? Did the Last Prothean stand with him? Did he really save the Krogan? Did he really amass an Armada that had Turians, Humans, Batarians, Quarians, Geth, Asari, and Salarians fighting side by side to save the Galaxy? Did he really do any of that?
I don't know.
Perhaps this is a whine, perhaps it's a rant, but none of those words really fill the gap of what I'm feeling. I suppose the best word is Mourning.
Mourning the loss of so much potential, the loss of everything that I invested in the game. I've put over a hundred hours into the Mass Effect Series...and now, I wonder if I'll ever put in another.
So here I am. An avid fan, one accepting of Bioware, enjoying their work, not demanding perfection, not demanding that WHAT I WANT be the most important thing to the creators, not even demanding money or re compensation or anything else from Bioware. I'm not pointing fingers or crucifying anyone, I'm not out for blood or vengeance, I'm not even saying that I'll do a boycott or refuse to buy anything.
I'm just saying that at the end of all this...something wonderful turned to something very sad, and it's disappointing to see it.
